As Doctors Taper or End Opioid Prescriptions, Many Patients Driven to Despair, Suicide

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From Fox News: “The CDC doesn’t have numbers of those who commit suicide after having their pain medications cut. But most of the doctors who spoke to Fox News said they knew of between one and six patients who took their life after losing access to opioid treatment, and being turned away from other doctors who now see prescription painkillers as a hassle.

Several prominent doctors and pain patient advocacy organizations said they have heard from hundreds who say they have been left in debilitating pain and are considering suicide. The issue earlier this year came to the attention of Human Rights Watch, which launched an investigation.

‘Clearly, there are patients now who feel like life is not worth living if they return to living in pain,’ said Diederik Lohman, director of Health and Human Rights for Human Rights Watch. ‘Many of the patients we spoke to are very law-abiding, and would turn to suicide before going to the street to get illicit drugs. The government has a duty to respond to the overdose crisis but to do so in a way that is harming people who have a legitimate medical issue is a human rights issue.'”

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21 COMMENTS

  1. Decidedly, the mafia is free to publish in news websites with large circulation … They are plainly telling us that the lifetime consumption of opioids prevents suicide!

    Obviously the law of the mafia prohibits comparing the suicide rate of people who are weaning and people who continue … Since when the mafia is doing scientific studies to promote his cam?

    Assert without proof, use the fear of suicide to counter the fear of overdose. They are garbage without faith nor law, they stop at no ignominy to continue their despicable traffic.

    What can stop them, if not brutal state repression?

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  2. According to Dr. Thomas Kline, “one of the worst health care crises in our history”, this is not the opioid crisis, but on the contrary the redirection of Americans towards a progressive weaning “by the force”. It would be “torture”, something dreadful that would cause an epidemic of suicides which, by comparison, makes the current overdoses epidemic much less worrying.

    But where are the facts? I will give some because the mafia does not do it (Burgess, 2004).

    [Blockquote]

    Do nations’ mental health policies, programs and legislation influence their suicide rates?

    An ecological study of 100 countries

    Objective: To test the hypothesis that the presence of national mental health policies, programs and legislation would be associated with lower national suicide rates.

    Method: Suicide rates from 100 countries were regressed on mental health policy, program and legislation indicators.

    Results: Contrary to the hypothesized relationship, the study found that after introducing mental health initiatives (with the exception of substance abuse policies), countries’ suicide rates rose.

    Conclusion: It is of concern that most mental health initiatives are associated with an increase in suicide rates. However, there may be acceptable reasons for the observed findings, for example initiatives may have been introduced in areas of increasing need, or a case-finding effect may be operating. Data limitations must also be considered.

    […]

    Results

    […]

    Mental health policies, programs and legislation as predictors of suicide rates

    Table 4 shows the findings of the regression analysis (significant findings are in bold). A country’s adoption of a substance use policy in a given year was associated with a decrease in male, female and total suicide rates in the following year and the years beyond that. By contrast, the introduction of a mental health policy and mental health legislation was associated with an increase in male and total suicide rates, and the introduction of a therapeutic drugs policy was associated with an increase in total suicide rates.

    table 4 (abstract). Adjusted percentage change in suicide rates

    total suicides: % change

    Mental health policy: +8.3%

    Mental health program: +4.9%

    Mental health legislation: +10.6%

    Substance use policy: -11.3%

    Therapeutic drugs policy: +7.0%

    Significant findings are in bold.

    [/blockquote]

    This is SCIENCE.

    What’s this Fox News‘s article? LIES.

    Bibliography:

    Burgess, P., Pirkis, J., Jolley, D., Whiteford, H., & Saxena, S. (2004). Do nations’ mental health policies, programs and legislation influence their suicide rates? An ecological study of 100 countries. Australian and New Zealand journal of psychiatry, 38(11-12), 933-939.

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  3. Someone needs to teach the doctors that the opioids are not “safe pain meds,” the doctors are highly delusional people who believe they are. Plus, it should be illegal to prescribe opioids, under different names, and without mentioning they are opioids. I’m quite certain such misinformation to patients, and inappropriate prescribing by doctors, is a big part of the cause of today’s opium epidemic.

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    • It’s not because you click on a link that you approve its destination! 😉

      But the Fox News article is only propaganda to encourage opioid users to continue indefinitely, with the fallacious argument that opioids do not worsen chronic pain, and that withdrawal will result in pain so severe that patients will commit suicide.

      Burgess’s study proves the exact opposite: drug prevention and withdrawal policies reduce the national suicide rate by 11.3%, while “therapeutic” drug addiction policies increase the national suicide rate by 7.0%.

      The Fox News article will kill people, encouraging them to continue opioids, by lying to them about the real causes of chronic pain and suicide.

      You can read the Burgess’ study on Sci-hub.

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      • LavenderSage, good policy. There are options if you do ever want to look at a Faux News story without being tracked. Everything you click on provides a data point about your interests that influence what you see in the future. It’s precisely how the internet and data analytics works. Cookies keep track of where you’ve been and report to future websites with tracking so that they can custom tailor what you see to what the data believes your interests are. So, knowing that, if there is any organization that you don’t trust or don’t want to be associated with. don’t click at all or you will be likely to be shown more of that site in the future.

        This goes for all data driven websites like google and other search engines, social media, and any website with tracking services enabled. Want to look at one of these sites without it tracking you? Don’t trust incognito browsing which can still track. Simply copying and pasting into Tor browser is a much safer option.

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  5. Here is a study what deserve to be review by MIA. Here is a popular article:

    Opioids no more effective for treating chronic pain than over-the-counter options, study finds

    “[Opioids] won’t work for most patients. For those that do, those benefits will often attenuate over time,” he said. “So why is it that so many patients, when started on long-term opioid therapy, will continue?”

    PS: Opioids for Chronic Noncancer Pain: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

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  6. “The findings also suggest opioids are no better than antidepressants for treating pain, but that they may provide better pain relief than anticonvulsant drugs such as gabapentin and pregabalin.”

    I read your link I tell you what next time you have a toothache take anti depressant and tell me how that works for you. “opioids are no better than antidepressants for treating pain” Stupidest thing I ever read.

    This is how an article is supposed to be written, with links to sources to back up every claim. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/government-crackdown-opioid-prescriptions-pain-patients_us_5b51ec57e4b0fd5c73c4a42e

    This whole idea that government is doing all this because they “care” about addicts is ludicrous anyway. What do they do if the catch you in the state of addiction. Arrest , they go for your driver licence to screw you out if your job, they turn you into an ATM machine with fines and fees probation then they give you record to F up future job opportunities. Believe me the government hates us and hopes we OD or put a gun to our heads.

    Pubic opinion of the drug war was getting too low so they cut off the pills to bring in heroin and fentanyl and created this whole thing.

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    • This is CHRONIC pain, not the acute pain.

      However the improvement is so small that it is possible that this is due to the fact that some patients have discovered that they take the active molecule and not the placebo, because of the side effects.

      Compared to an active placebo, which simulates side effects without having an anti-pain property, it is possible that the real effectiveness of all these molecules for chronic pain is zero.

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      • Ok sure opiates don’t work cause this moron https://www.theglobeandmail.com/authors/carly-weeks/ at “the globe and mail” says so.

        But since un named “studies suggest” lets just have the government with its legal monopoly on coercion and violence to back it up step in over ride doctors and practice medicine with a one size fits all policy for everyone.

        I can find 1000s of testimonials online from people who say this is harming them. http://www.google.com/search?q=war+on+pain+patients

        Can you find me a single testimonial from a pain patient who was cut off and is grateful ?

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        • Part of the issue is that the addicts that root to ban all opiates almost always is a methadone for life!! type. I saw it first hand

          Maybe meth addicts in various unverified stages of sobriety can dictate narcolepsy and ADHD prescription management.

          I’m not saying it’s bad to have collaboration in this. But in my state, there was one out of five in the ethical spectrum.

          I mean, I see highlighted “substance abuse treatment” which include the “indefinite methadone/suboxone” maintenance protocol.

          I mean, the ones in pain deserve it but methadone for life!! That’s my state

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          • “addicts that root to ban all opiates”

            I worked in the rehab and have gone to at least 1000 12 step meeting and never once met an addict who roots to ban all opiates.

            “indefinite methadone/suboxone” maintenance protocol.

            A ‘kid’ (early 20s) I knew from recovery last year I recently heard died of an OD. I was there when they forced him to taper off suboxone and he wasn’t happy about it and acted out and was discharged.

            That was him but I don’t believe in “protocols” that is the whole problem, their algorithms and protocols the one size fits all systems the government creates treating us all like farm animals to be managed.

            That ‘kid’ the last one I know that died of an OD I am pretty certain the decision was made to get him off the suboxone was based on some check box algorithm based protocol.

            Check this out

            “The recovering addict landed in Nassau County’s Felony Treatment Court, a program that allows defendants to avoid jail and clear their criminal records if they stay out of trouble.

            To be eligible, Judge Frank Gulotta, Jr., said Robert Lepolszki would have to give up methadone, the drug he’d credited with curbing his cravings and helping him stay off heroin. https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Methadone-Judge-Rule-Father-Blame-Lepolszki-Son-Overdose-Heroin-Addict-Ruling-I-Team-Investigation-273213211.html

            They killed him.

            Personally I think methadone and suboxone maintenance just keeps you sick but again its the one size fits all check box algorithms and protocols killing people. They are subjecting pain patients to the same check box algorithms and protocols killing them too.

            Why do we even have doctors if government is there with check box algorithms to make medical decisions ?

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  7. The current medical establishment does not know shit about how to treat “chronic pain.” In fact their current track record of so-called treatments have CAUSED an epidemic of more chronic pain.

    Now that their on going record of prolific prescriptions for high doses of opioids has become more exposed (for not working and contributing to the overdose epidemic), they are now taking some people too rapidly off their drugs with NO REPLACEMENT APPROACH for their failed course of “treatment.”

    Once a course of high doses of opioids is begun with some patients (causing dependency and an almost total lack of physical activity) it becomes almost impossible to switch course to a path without these drugs.

    There ARE alternatives to these drugs, but the patients must be carefully educated about the benefits of these alternative strategies and convinced that that more opioids will actually create OPIOID INDUCED HYPERALGESIA – which makes people MORE sensitive to pain over time.

    Richard

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    • It’s very similar to “supersensitivity psychosis.” If you block a pain receptor, the brain compensates by creating more receptors, and when you stop blocking, the extra receptors make one extra sensitive to pain. This is very well known in the world of substance abuse, yet somehow, the exact same or very similar drugs aren’t acknowledged to create the same effect, apparently because they are prescribed by doctors which magically prevents them from doing the same things as their street drug cousins. It is amazingly idiotic, and yet that’s what people continue to believe. And now the solution is to pull them off the drugs that the doctors have gotten them addicted to, without any plans on how to deal with the induced damage to their nervous systems? It is beyond comprehension.

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      • Hi Steve, good points (and I hadn’t heard of opioid-induced hyperalgesia, but it makes sense – another frustrating angle in this whole topic), but just one thing – when you mention “addicted to,” do you mean “dependent on”? My understanding is that addiction is the more psychological phenomenon whereas dependence is the physical aspect where the body becomes accustomed to the drug, and that the two terms are often confused & used interchangeably when really they’re two separate issues.

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  8. Tylenol overdose is the leading cause of acute liver failure in the U.S., leading to 26,000 hospitalizations and nearly 500 deaths annually, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

    The new study, led by Dr. Kenneth Simpson of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, followed 663 hospital patients who had suffered from acetaminophen overdose between 1992 and 2008. Of these patients, 161 had taken a staggered overdose, increasingly escalating their use of painkillers containing acetaminophen to treat common pain like toothache, headache and muscle pain.

    http://healthland.time.com/2011/11/23/study-taking-just-a-little-too-much-tylenol-each-time-can-be-deadly/

    Rather interesting that the CDC, which has inserted itself firmly up your doctor’s anus for writing scripts for Valium or hydrocodone, is only too happy to recommend that pain patients take a drug that is more likely to cause an overdose than either of them. https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/09/11/tylenol-far-most-dangerous-drug-ever-made-11711

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  9. Part of the issue is that the addicts that root to ban all opiates almost always is a methadone for life!! type. I saw it first hand

    Maybe meth addicts in various unverified stages of sobriety can dictate narcolepsy and ADHD prescription management.

    I’m not saying it’s bad to have collaboration in this. But in my state, there was one out of five in the ethical spectrum.

    Report comment

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